France eyes ECB bank supervision job: finance minister

BRUSSELS – France has a put forward a candidate to chair the European Central Bank's new bank supervisory authority, Finance Minister Pierre Moscovici said on Monday.

The authority will directly police at least 150 of the euro zone's biggest banks from March 2014 following talks with the European Parliament.

The secretary general of France's ACP financial sector regulator, Daniele Nouy, has so far been cited as well placed to chair the board of the new body.

"We have a candidate for this post, it's not a mystery and I hope that she will convince," Moscovici told a news conference after a meeting of the Eurogroup of euro zone finance ministers.

Moscovici declined to give the name of the French candidate.

The euro zone ministers elected their Dutch counterpart Jeroen Dijsselbloem as the new chair of the Eurogroup, a job for which Moscovici had at one point been considered as a candidate.

Moscovici, who backed Dijsselbloem for the job despite some reservations about the Dutchman's views on belt-tightening, insisted that France had not put forward a candidate for the ECB bank supervisor job as part of a broader deal on top jobs.